NBCB’s Tommy Wong on spending 12 ‘torturous’ hours per day in prison playing inmate for new drama

After spending 12 hours a day for six months filming in prison, local actor-entrepreneur Tommy Wong has one thing to say: “Don’t commit crimes.”The 40-year-old and founder of Nothing But Cheeseburger (NBCB) plays inmate Chan who is behind bars due to involvement in gang activity in the new English drama Yes Captain!.The 65-episode serial follows three fresh graduates — Kheng (played by Clement Yeo), Sani (Zhin Sadali) and Charlize (Tasha Low) — who join the Singapore Prison Service (SPS), each driven by different goals.”There are days when I film for two weeks straight. Every day we had to be there at 5.30am to clock in and we only saw the moon when we got out,” Tommy told AsiaOne in a recent interview.He would usually be done with filming by 6.30pm but getting through the layers of security took up to 40 minutes.We asked how it was like filming in a prison.”I cannot say it’s comfortable… We can’t even bring anything electronic in. What we had was our scripts. I read it at least 30 to 40 times,” he said.